News from Latin America and the Caribbean

DNA testing pits media family against Argentina government

June 10, 2010 | 2:24
pm

Two siblings adopted by a powerful media family in Argentina are undergoing DNA testing against their will to determine whether their biological parents were victims of the country's dark "dirty war," The Times reports. Marcela and Felipe Noble Herrera, both 34, said they did not wish to know the identity of their biological parents, but the government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner insisted, raiding their home in late May to collect DNA samples from underwear and toothbrushes.

The Noble Herrera siblings are adopted children of Ernestina Herrera de Noble, owner of the Clarin media conglomerate. The Clarin newspaper is known as a platform of opposition to the Kirchner administration.

The DNA testing of children adopted during the dirty war period is an effort to find closure for surviving victims of the military junta, which was responsible for as many as 30,000 deaths between 1976 and 1983. But the Herrera family says their proceedings have been politicized, and that the national DNA bank, which holds samples from dirty war victims, is unreliable.

Testing began Monday on the Herrera siblings' DNA samples and results are expected within a month.